The Region Lock: Why?

To prevent reverse importing. It's not hard to play games you can understand a lick of text or speech in at all, and the Japanese certainly aren't unfamiliar with English.

I don't know where this myth started that Japanese people can all speak English since they take it in school but it is erroneus. It's like suggesting all Americans can speak Spanish.

Although, in reality, far more Americans speak Spanish than Japanese speak English.---Official Alice of the Shin Megami Tensei IV boardhttp://backloggery.com/shampoowarrior

#52SF_BahaPosted 12/18/2012 8:59:09 PM

there is an entire region of gamers with no legitimate access to a game that has already been localized into their native language. That is a situation that is ridiculous and inexcusable in my opinion.

Why? The company decides what regions get to play what games, not you. The distributor decides how the work is distributed. You are not entitled to play a videogame simply because it exists.---"USDA Select meat tastes better than USDA Prime." - The Wii gaming mentality.

#53IHeartMetroidPosted 12/18/2012 9:04:29 PM

"Why? The company decides what regions get to play what games, not you. The distributor decides how the work is distributed. You are not entitled to play a videogame simply because it exists."

Wow.

Just...

You know that has no actual basis in reality, right?

#54Xenesis XenonPosted 12/18/2012 9:14:30 PM

IHeartMetroid posted...

Quite frankly, I don't believe you. Especially given that I know for a fact that importers take advantage of import scarcity to rack up prices, I find it absolutely impossible to believe that it's significantly cheaper and easier to pay international air freight shipping from a foreign country, as opposed to walking across a street and just picking up a game.

Even with the import shop markup and shipping, due to the incredibly buoyant Australian dollar importing is almost always cheaper. The difference is most marked on release day and gets less important the older the game is in most circumstances. The differential is actually that big (across pretty much every category of physical good) that retail here is quite literally dying because it cannot compete with import sales. The other part of it is that the GST threshold for parcels is $1000 AUD equivalent in value. That's another 10% saving right there.

Importing games from places like Play-asia and Lik-sang (Back when it still existed) would save me anywhere from $30 to $50 per game that I bought. I imported a Japanese Wii and the price savings from the games I bought new, at release saved me more than the cost of the Japanese Wii in the first place over the lifetime of the console.

This doesn't even get into things like eShops where every single item is at a minimum of a 60% markup outside of currency (The Playstation Store is a perfect example, any US $9.99 costs AUD $15.95)

And the price racking is actually not that significant if you look outside established stores. There are a lot of grey market stores that import large amounts of games for consoles that are region free and sell them at what would be heavily discounted prices compared to the local versions - games sourced from whichever region is compatible and cheapest, be it the UK, US or Japan for multilanguage games. Or simply places like Ebayers where ebay shops will sell new games to whoever will buy them.

It's pretty straightforward - since I started importing games about five years ago my median purchase cost for a game has gone from $90 for console games and $60 for handhelds to $50 for console games and $30 for handhelds. The savings are real.---www.warsworldnews.com - Wars World News - The most chilled AW community on the web.

#5521_21Posted 12/18/2012 9:16:44 PM

SF_Baha posted...

there is an entire region of gamers with no legitimate access to a game that has already been localized into their native language. That is a situation that is ridiculous and inexcusable in my opinion.

Why? The company decides what regions get to play what games, not you. The distributor decides how the work is distributed. You are not entitled to play a videogame simply because it exists.

there is an entire region of gamers with no legitimate access to a game that has already been localized into their native language. That is a situation that is ridiculous and inexcusable in my opinion.

Why? The company decides what regions get to play what games, not you. The distributor decides how the work is distributed. You are not entitled to play a videogame simply because it exists.

But the reality is that we can play those games. Whether or not the company is even eligible to receive remuneration is all that is up to them now.

You all disgust me. You only think of yourselves, what YOU want. You think you deserve everything that exists, and you think you're ENTITLED to everything that exists, simply because it exists.

"Morality" is a human invention, a cop out attempt to justify misdeeds. Morality has no criteria, no measure, and is not applicable to any government or organization on the planet. It has no influence in the world.

tl;dr You don't have the world wrapped around your finger. Sorry the news had to be broken to you on Gamefaqs.com.---"USDA Select meat tastes better than USDA Prime." - The Wii gaming mentality.

#58SF_BahaPosted 12/19/2012 1:18:55 AM

I'm beginning to suspect that the irate posters in this topic are miserable with their lives and seek power as a means of retaliation, in any way they can. "Yeah, my life might suck, but I can still obtain Stairway to Heaven for free HA HA suckers come at me bro!"---"USDA Select meat tastes better than USDA Prime." - The Wii gaming mentality.

#59IHeartMetroidPosted 12/19/2012 1:27:27 AM(edited)

SF_Baha has a sad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHFxncb1gRY

#60shampoowarriorPosted 12/19/2012 1:28:09 AM

SF_Baha posted...

You all disgust me. You only think of yourselves, what YOU want. You think you deserve everything that exists, and you think you're ENTITLED to everything that exists, simply because it exists.

"Morality" is a human invention, a cop out attempt to justify misdeeds. Morality has no criteria, no measure, and is not applicable to any government or organization on the planet. It has no influence in the world.

tl;dr You don't have the world wrapped around your finger. Sorry the news had to be broken to you on Gamefaqs.com.

lol

"Law" is a human invention as well. "Misdeeds" are a fluctuating definition based on fallible laws made by men, imposed upon the populace by those in power, paid for by those with money.

Like I said before, the reality is that the games are available to everyone, regardless of the choices of the company or the distributors. The only real choice they have is if they want to make money off of the products or not.

Making a product unavailable is a great way to not make any money off of the product, but, in this day and age, it is a terrible way to prevent anyone from experiencing it.---Official Alice of the Shin Megami Tensei IV boardhttp://backloggery.com/shampoowarrior